mitral valve prolapse is destroying my life

hello there everyone and RLR

im 26 at the moment and i was 17 when i got my heart problems shown up. I was getting ectopics and palps when i first realized them. iwent to cardiologists (many of them) they always said nothing wrong with my heart im just panicking. then i got a real heart anxiety and many of panick attacks that my parents took me to the emergencys and doctors many many many times.Lots of test (ECG, echo, holter monitors, event recorders) they did. Always said nothing to worry about everything is fine. I went to psychologists ad used medicine for anxiety and panick attack. But the heart things always continued. And a bad shjortness of breath i was having. sometmies with the attacks sometimes all the day.

ath the end when i was 22 i went to a cardiologist again (the last one) and he said that "you got mitral valve prolapse. But nothing to worry about cause its minor. " like 1/200 or something like that as you can understand more clearly" he said. you can do everything you want even hard sport activities. You will get this ectopics and these can panşc you but they are harmless for sure. You need no medicine or somethnig else."

From this day i got better. My anxiety and panic attack nearly cures and went away. Ectopics and shortness of breath was always here but they were becoming very very often. for 3 years eerything was fine.

On May 2010 one day i was walking to bus stop to take my girlfriend. It is some long way but i was walking that road everyday. While walking i got e real long pause that i felt like im felling down but didnt, and my head felt like its gonna blow (every ectopic felts like this but this one was really blowing head). ı stopped for a moment and then tried to go on with a bad palp. and then everything came back the bad ectopics and shortness of breath attacks. hundreds of ectopics in days and sometimes a few of them become on and on i feel like my heart is jumping in my chest (like: ectopic - ectopic - normal beat - ectopic - pause - palp...) I went to my cardiologist again and got a one day holter and 7 days event recorder. in holter results i read "premature bets and 2. level AV block". i freaked out and thought that the valve problem got worse. But my cardiologist said again the same things. Ectopics can become often thats nothing to worry about. You can do everything. He said "i can understand its scary but they will not harm you. You will panic again and again but they wont do anything. Just live with them."

But theres something that i want to tell when i got a holter or event recorder or anything like that, these stupid ectopics dont happen like i always had. it happened once at the last time bıut it was ver very little.
i want them to happen at that time but they are resisting. Its like a joke so my cardiologist cant see my worst times.

But i have got some relief again from my last contact to my doctor. but last few months im having these night wake ups too much. and a new symptom that im feeling lightheaded most of the days. sometimes it become slowly. sometimes very sudden that i feel like im going to lose consciousness. But never fainted or felt down. Im counting my blood presure and its okay generally. Im aware of my heartbet even i if i dont touch anywhere of my body. my heart usually beats hard. But sometimes beats very low and slow. this is very annoying that sometimes beats slow-fast-slow-fast changing its speed so quickly in seconds. im getting tired so quickly. even now im getting this lightheaded feeling. like my head is giving a pressure.

In addition far about a few weeks now im avare of that after i walk or give some little effort my heart beats too fast and hard. and the main thing is that when trying to slow down first it gives a late beat (not a pause after an extra beat) and a few slow beats later it gets faster again then again a late beat and slow and go on like that till it gets to normal.
i will try to explain as if we say the "W" is a heartbet its like that:

w-w-w-w-w-w-----w-----w----w---w--w--w-w-w-w-w-----w---w--w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w

and these slowing prosedures giving some little head pressure. i wonder if anyone else feeling like that?

Im really in a bad shape that i cant eat well cant sleep well my anxiety killing me. I cant even live a minute without it. Always all seconds counting my heart beats. I cant go to school and work relaxed. im really at he bottom. i want to go to my doctor again but i fear that if he tell me that the problem got worse. i dont know what to do really. Does this mvp can go this badly in short terms ?

sorry for this long post.

Burak

Hi Burak,

Many of the symptoms you mentioned are simply aligned with anxiety and panic and may not be caused by your valve thingy. I guess in a way it's what came first, the chicken or the egg?

Ectopics/palps etc generally don't stem from the heart itself so are completely harmless.

yeah steve i know that all the symptoms can cause by anxiety and many times im telling myself that my panic causes all. But i cant stop thinking about them and im for sure everyday everytime listening to myself. the more i listen another new symptom is beginning to happen. At the moment getting tired easily, that "late beat" thing i explained, and lightheaded feelings are the worst.

sometimes im telling myself that " if you listen yourself second by second the heart cant work well". i think that maybe i cause that late beat and slow - fast - slow -fast periods. while it try to slow down im holding my neck and counting it anxiously so it cant slow down proparly.

Maybe i justhave to learn not to counting , but i cant. This awareness and at the same time non awareness going to kill me!!

Hello burak

Sorry to hear you're going through such a bad time. Can I ask the connection with RLR..I know he is a retired doctor so have you had a diagnosis from him about this? If so what did he tell you was the problem?

Anna x

hey anna,
thanx for the reply

i also sent him a private message now :/

Hi There,
I too have MVP and left ventricle enlargement. Feel free to ask me anything you would like to know.

i am 32 years old and i also went to doctors yesturday and they said i have mvp ,when he told me that i started to cry and its made my anxitey and panic so much worse ,my question is can mvp cause symptoms to stay allday long everyday ,? i have alot of symtpoms and i just am worrieing bad :( ....my doctor says dont worrie about it but its hard ....

MVP is so common as to be unremarkable to a cardio and only in really really bad cases do cardios take any notice. They can hear mvp when they listen to your heart and it usually shows on echos as well but again if its slight they often don't even tell you. Same with normal heart and ectopics- I was told by two cardios that if they don't tell patients who don't notice ectipcis that they have them as they consider them a normal variation in heart rhythm.

You wwww description sounded perfecty typical of normal ectopics, this is what mine would be like if I did the www explanation. I have all your symptoms but do not have mvp. I get multiple ectopics one after the other for up to 10 seconds and believe me I feel as if I am going to keel over as well including the head pressure its unbelievable.

I think you main problem is the anxiety making the ectopics worse rather than your mvp causing problems - understand totally how you feel but cardios are happy so its a case of gritting your teeth and putting up with the horrible but harmless symptoms.

thanks for your reply ,ive been so worried over this ,i always knew this wasnt just anx like dotors been telling me all these years ,but after they gave me a name for it ,i was scared but relief..doctor told me it can cause shortness of breath so of course my health anx kicked in and now i cant breath ,i keep thinking its my heart is bad and i cant breathe because of that ,just needed some reasureance thanks